Tautou
by love will not hurt
Summary: She watched him close his eyes, tired from being fragile. She watched him, and she never blinked. Sequel To The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot And Degausser. Eli/Clare.


Author Mentions: Sequel to The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot, and Degausser. The Title and Lyrics are Tautou by Brand New. This is the end of my Brand New series. It's almost 10,000 words and I hope I did it justice to the story. Every time I get a new review, alert, or favorite, I'm ready to write more and more Eli/Clare. Don't fail me now, guys. I love you all too much.

Rated: M

Pairing: Eli/Clare

Disclaimer: I own a wool sweater, mascara, and a nice computer. No Degrassi. No, really. No Degrassi.

**I'm sinking like a stone in the sea **

_**Eli**_

_1 year 12 days _

It's his eighteenth birthday, and instead of gifts and cake and pats on the back, he's loading up on cardboard boxes.

Which is fine by him. Actually, he probably prefers it that way.

His hearse proves to be an excellent place to put his things, along with a futon mattress, a dissembled dresser and a lamp. He would rather that it be Morty anyway, instead of a moving truck. It feels right that his beloved car would take him away from this place rather than some generic rental.

He's been emancipated for a few months before he turned eighteen, but due to the fact that his stepfather, Paul, was a tyrant, he had been unable to get his things out of his room, besides sneaking the occasional clothes before. Now, his parents were out of the house for the day, because Paul's mother's birthday at the trailer park. This was his chance.

It was strange looking at the house during the daylight, as he usually snuck in when Paul was out at a bar and his mom was asleep to get things like clothes, sometimes a journal. When his mother had been pregnant, he had tried to sneak in every week to check if she was okay, unbeknownst to her. It was a Thursday when he slipped in through his window, tipped toed down the hall, and saw that she wasn't there. The next time, he realizes she isn't pregnant anymore, and he had wanted to mourn the loss.

They don't know he's there, though he's sure his mother has a feeling, even if she is too timid to voice it to Paul, who, when he last saw his stepson, threatened to kill him. The emancipation papers had come a week later, signed on his part, signed on a guidance counselor's part. There was no need to bring it to court to contest. The hospital records, while nothing could have been proven (and nothing would have been done where Paul couldn't have gotten out in a few days, anyway) were enough to satisfy a judge to sign the papers.

He knew it broke his mother's heart. But he couldn't live underneath that kind of terror any longer. Now, looking up at the dank, brick house, the remainder of his things in the trunk, he realized that this was never truly home. He hadn't found home, after his mother married Paul, for a long time. He had thought he had found peace in Julia, but when she had died, he was even more alone. More unsure then when he realized that his mother would always choose Paul over him. More unconfident when he thought he could never find a home again.

But he had found home in Clare. And he had to believe in that.

**Clare**

_1 year 12 days_

It's strange not having Eli Goldsworthy all over her room any more. It's barely night time, and she keeps looking over to her window, thinking he'll be there, rapping slightly, waiting.

But he's not. Soon, she thought, when he found an apartment, he won't ever be again.

It wasn't that he ever had to sneak in, as her father spent just about enough time at home to grab another carry on. It wasn't like they had to tip-toe around, when they had the whole house to gallivant around in. It wasn't as if his parents wondered where he was, ever. But that's how they were: they tiptoed because they grew up in households where it was bad to make noise; where being invisible was good. They snuck in because somewhere in their minds they know adults wouldn't approve, even though they also know adults wouldn't take the time to understand that they're in love. They know that adults wouldn't take the time to understand how much they've been through.

She looked around at her floor again, unsettled by how _clean _it was: there were no empty boxes of cereal, as Eli liked to eat Captain Crunch by the bedside before sleeping. There were no random stacks of clean laundry, sitting on top of piles of dirty laundry, or random piles of Ska cds, horror movies, and non-fiction books. The completely absence of black put her on edge. She felt like she was missing apart of herself - like the dark gray boxer briefs that use to reside on the left side of her bed was in her genetic make up. It shook her fingers as she typed on her laptop when she was starting to realize that she would be sleeping in this bed alone.

But she didn't cry. This wasn't a time to be sad, or miserable. Eli was free, free from his desperate mother, and his horrible stepfather, the ties to his old house. Eli wasn't even connected to Degrassi, having graduated four months ago, and furthermore, he was unconnected to anything related to Mark Fitzgerald. She felt the bubbles inside of her stomach just thinking about how free her boy was, how light he must feel. The brick road, after being dangerously bumpy and almost severed in half, had started to turn yellow.

_She_ could even breathe.

A knock on her window. She looked to the glass slowly, a leisurely grin appearing on her face. Prancing over to the window, like so many nights before, she slide open the window and stepped back for him to climb in. He stands over her, half smirking, his eyes alight.

"How's your new-found freedom?" She asks, her voice seemingly shy. Eli knows better, and instead of smirking, he smiles. She thinks he's most beautiful - awake, at least - when he's actually smiling, a full Cheshire sized grin. He doesn't answer, because he doesn't need to. She knows. She can feel the burdens leaving too.

"You look nice tonight." He says, lifting her up in his arms and setting her on her bed. She lies back, pulling Eli with her. Her fingers find the hair on his forehead, and she runs through the stands, an absent smile on her lips.

"I'm wearing your shirt, and a pair of underwear," she rolled her eyes, but Eli nodded.

"I know. It's what I like you in best."

**Eli**

_1 year 22 days_

They didn't have sex often - but when they did, it meant something.

It was Clare, seven months ago, who provoked the issue. He had thought that with a girl like her, they would have had to get married before he could see her naked - a dilemma that, at the time, rarely entered his mind. He remembers the night with sub-par accuracy - it had been raining, and Clare skin was still wet from a shower, and the physical closeness had almost suffocated him.

He remembers the look she gave him, though. He remembers the bite in her lip, the small half-smile she had adopted from him. Her eyes had looked darker than the usual clear aqua - they were murkier, clouded with lust, and love, and a strange need to conquer another elephant in the room. She had reeled him in - once again, but in a different way. It was a different kind of closeness, and after Fitz, it had terrified him.

She had, of course, held his hand through it all - figuratively and literally. She would always.

He looked down at her below him, her hair curly and wild from his hands running through it - and he glanced to there fingers intertwined; tightly together. Nothing to break that apart.

"Slow, tonight," He murmured, placing his lips to his ear. "I want to remember this moment forever"

Clare nodded, closing her eyes and pulling him closer on top of her body, pressing every bone and line and scar to her like she owned them, too. His Dead Hands shirt, which had just recently adorned her body, was now gone, and the bedside lamp made her skin glow. He could feel himself smiling as he kissed the niches in her body, the secret places only he knew of. "Forever," She breathed.

He let himself be engulfed in Clare - forgetting his fears, closing his eyes, and letting the future, for a second, leave him blind.

**Clare**

_1 year 22 days _

Sometimes, the nightmares came back.

Two-hundred and fourteen times she's had to wake him up from his own dreams, even though it's been a little over a year since Fitz attacked him. Now, as she listens to his whimpering get louder, it's two-hundred and fifteen. She just doesn't know how bad this one will be.

The hardest part is waiting to know if she _can_ wake him up. If they aren't too bad, she reasons, she'll let them draw out and wait for him to fall back into a semi-peaceful sleep. Even though she isn't doing anything, it's another way of protecting him. If Eli knew how many times he actually woke her up in the middle of the night, or in the early morning, she knows his pride would be wounded.

Sometimes, though, the nightmares come back and they aren't just nightmares - they're terrors.

It was one of those nights.

She sits up, not bothering to turn on the lights. In the past year, a lot of the time, she realizes that darkness can be better - not in the figurative sense, either, but in the literal sense. Even though she thinks she's strong, and Eli is one of the strongest people she'll ever come to love, sometimes she can't bare to look at his face when he's crying. She blinks back memories of his shattered and broken body, his tearstained face, his eyes swollen red against the greenest of hues - and she wishes that those images could go away.

Though she salvages those recollections as much as she is scared of them - they're a marker to see how far they've come. To see how much better it's gotten. It's her sick way of keeping optimistic, it's her secret resource.

She leans over him, placing her cool hand on his sweaty forehead. Eli's shoulders are tense, and his mouth is parted slightly, his hair pushed back from his forehead. His eyebrows are furrowed, and she can feel him kicking his legs. Her stomach feels queasy, even after all this time, looking at him struggle so obviously. Her left hand grips his shoulder, her right patting him on the face.

"Eli," She says, loud enough so she'll hear him. He turns his head to the side, trying to inch away, fraught with terror. She knows his insides are slicked with self-disgust, and she feels her fingers start to shake. No matter how many times, seeing someone you love in this much pain is never easy. She'll never get used to it.

"Eli," She says louder, shaking him slightly. "Eli, wake up. You're dreaming. It isn't real - Eli, wake up!" She agitates his shoulders again, and he seems to shiver from her touch. It repulses her that he's afraid, even unconscious, to be touched without initiating it first.

"Eli!" She shouts over his own yelling, which sounds primal and piercing, cutting through the thick night silence. "Eli, I love you. You're dreaming - wake up now!"

Her own heart seems to cool when he opens his eyes, wide and fearing. His voice seems hoarse, his brow slick with sweat. "Clare."

"I'm here," She can't bring herself to smile. Her body aches. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, and his buries his cheek into her abdomen, breathing louder than the wind outside.

"I'm sorry." he mumbles. She can feel the emotion in his throat, thick with implications he can't bring himself to voice.

She shakes her head, though he can't see it. "I was going to get up in an hour, any way," She says, and hates the way her voice shakes. She separates herself from him to make tea, and to sob a little over the kettle. There are no tears, as she's all out of those, but her breathing is labored and she can't let Eli see her like that. He has enough guilt coursing through his body as it is. She'd die if she knew that she was responsible for some of it.

When she returns, she brings a box of Captain Crunch to join the half-empty one to by his bedside and The Goonies, and together they watch it wrapped up in her sheets, letting the sun rise above and claim them.

**Eli**

_1 year 32 days _

They're invincible together.

He realizes this when Clare helps him move into his new apartment - well, it's more of a studio, as there aren't any walls save for the bathroom. The walls are ancient and brick, with large, lean windows to showcase the city below him. There is a kitchen in the corner, and beside that, a large window seat.

They shove his futon, which is barely higher than the ground underneath two of the Victorian-esque windows near the bathroom. When he comes back up with boxes full of books, he finds Clare making his bed for him - white sheets, black duvet. He watches her by the front door as she tucks the corners in, before reaching down and pulling a red quilt - the plaid one he recognized from her room - setting it at the end of the bed.

"I already hung up all your clothes," She murmured, making eye contact and giving him a look as to why he was just standing there. He assumed he probably had a dumbfound look on his face. "The closet space is very nearly pathetic, but we could probably find you an used dresser. Room is not the problem in this place, really."

"I have bookcase." He points at the black bookcase sitting next to the window seat.

She rolls her eyes and smiles good naturedly. "They're different."

"Oh." He mutters, setting the boxes down and returning to get more from Morty, which was parked parallel on the street. He eyed the Honda next to it nervously, looking at the space between the cars. Morty was vintage, after all. It'd cost him more to fix a piece of art on wheels than it would a dumb foreign car. When he returned, setting the boxes on the small kitchen counter, he sighed. "These are it."

"It?" Clare shrieked, looking alarmed. He could feel his own skin jump. "That's _it_?"

"What do you mean? It's the last box." He repeats. She rolls her eyes at him, walking in the quaint kitchen.

"You have no dishware, no plates, cups, silverware - no pots or pans, no spatulas! And there aren't any towels, toothbrushes. They isn't any thing on the walls, either." She looks completely distraught, and he can't help but shuffle.

"I thought we could pick those out together. I was going to ask you to come with me, right after I asked you to move in with me." His words seemed to rush, and kept on before he lose the window. "Look, I've thought about it. Degrassi is fifteen minutes away, and I couldn't….I can't bare the thought of going to sleep without you next to me. More than that. I can't bare the thought of waking up, too, without you next me."

He takes a breath. "I've said it a million times, but Clare, I love you."

She doesn't have a facial expression - why doesn't she have a facial expression? Why isn't she giving him some kind of clue before she speaks - some kind of warning for the inevitable downfall?

Instead, she closes her eyes for a moment before smiling. "You think Morty will mind us loading him up again?" Clare says, smiling, and he hugs her, listening for the little pops in her back and lifts her off feet for a moment. It's that moment, small and tiny in the cracks of the world, that he realizes he's healing. He realizes he's beginning to feel more human now, more complete.

**Clare**

_1 year 32 days_

It's barely October of her senior year, but she's graduating.

She's always been part of the gifted program in Degrassi - taking junior and senior classes as a sophomore, advanced placement and college credit as a junior. Now, coming back only for two months to finish her English credits, she's ready to leave. She doesn't want to look at the hallways, the classrooms, the study breaks and short lunches anymore.

She'll miss Adam, and Alli, and god, she might even miss seeing KC's dumbfounded face around the school.

But she'll never miss the teachers. She'll never miss the students. The healing process - for the both of them, would have been so much easier if she didn't have to look Mark Fitzgerald in the face every day and known what he had done. It would have been easier, she knew, if Eli could have finished the rest of his year knowing that the monster who took everything away from him wasn't just a hallway over. The nausea she felt every time she went into those classes, knowing that she couldn't tell anyone, she couldn't reach out to a teacher have them help Eli. It made her blood simmer with anger, it made her lungs expand with frustration that they all watched him sink deeper and deeper into an oblivion and had done _nothing. _

She's walking outside the doors of Degrassi and into her life, free of old ghosts and strange shadows. She knows that straight ahead won't be easy - won't be smooth sailing, but it can't ever be as hard as before.

Her father takes her out to dinner to celebrate her graduating, even though she isn't going to walk with her class and she has no purpose in attending his old college down in Ontario. She reasons that he looks a little older, a little more worn, and she's surprised at how much she liked his new girlfriend, Hannah, and how endearing she was. It was this knowledge that her father wouldn't be alone that gave her the confidence to tell him that she was moving out the next day. There was no sense, she pointed on, to live in a house so far away from the college she was starting in January. There was no sense, she had wanted to say, to live in a house so big and so empty.

Her father had taken it in stride, patting her shoulder and smiling. _My Clare, always so independent. _

He hadn't even smelt familiar.

Later she slipped into Eli's bed, his sheets, his blankets. The sky was black and there was a tree eye level with the windows, whipping it's golden leaves against the glass. Eli was asleep already, sprawled on his back, his bangs feathery and light against his eyelids, his arms spread wide. He took up the whole bed, the whole space in her life. He took everything and she only gave him more.

She's only a little terrified of this revelation.

**Eli**

_1 year 42 days_

When he wakes up, he reminds himself that it isn't Clare's ceiling he's looking at, but his own.

Finally, something that is _his_. He hasn't had something of is own for a very long time, the last being the full ownership of Morty. He can breathe in and out, and his chest doesn't sink in when he sits up to face a new day, his eyelids don't fall back down to touch his cheeks, heavily, like they used to. His gut doesn't throb with depression, doesn't remind him of his worthlessness. He'll never be truly free, truly unchained, but the moments of fleeting contentedness are coming closer, lasting longer. And he'll be banking on them.

There's a note on the floor next the left side of the bed (His side of the bed, always his side), sitting expectantly underneath his bottle of anti-anxiety medicine.

_Love -_

_Went to see my mom, she'll show me all the nooks and crannies to find a nice crock pot. Be back by noon (if you're awake by then). We'll make lunch. Love always, _

_C_

He saunters half-naked into the kitchen to find a box of Captain Crunch and revels in the fact that he had can do that now. Clare has already hung up photographs she had taken: some of the large black and white pictures were still propped up against the brick walls. He had often questioned why she only took black and white photos - they were beautiful, nonetheless - and she had told him that color was too complicated. Shades were beautiful in their simplicity.

A wave of sadness runs over him in the middle of his tidy, small kitchen when he thinks of how he'll never be simple for Clare. This is what emotional scars do you: they sneak. They hide. And they find you when you're least expecting it. He runs his fingers over his arms, walking the few steps it takes by to their bed and curls himself inside of it, finding her pillow and smelling it. He'll never be just trouble-free, or uncomplicated. He'll always be a mess, and she'll always have to pick up the pieces, and he loves her too much to make her do that for the rest of their lives.

But he loves her too much to ever let her go. He's not sure how to function without her.

It's absolutely paralyzing.

**Clare**

_1 year 42 days _

Her mother had kept her out all day, and at five, she had come home with Thai take out to make up for being so late. When she walks into the apartment, and feels how eerily quiet it is, she feels her heart sink a little. Because she knows.

Eli's curled up in the middle of bed, fast asleep, his naked shoulders pale against the overcast light outside darkening into night. She places the Thai in the refrigerator, running a hand through her hair and sighing. She knew what kind of day it was for him and it made her heart heavy.

It reminded her of the weeks right after the assault when he would sleep for hours, sometimes days - only waking up to go to the bathroom, and on occasion eat something. Those were the days where she fought the most with herself, the inner wheels turning against the pros and cons of going to someone for help. She had never seen someone so low, so deep into misery. She had never seen someone so close to death, and it had chilled her to the bone. Eli had been unable to return to Degrassi, unable to talk about the attack after the day he had told her everything, unable to love and touch her the way he had before. His soul had been damaged, weakened, and she thought there was no return.

Days where he slept all day, where the tiniest, microscopic - sometimes invisible - things triggered sleep periods reminded her of the darkest times of their relationship. It made her feel deep, but not in a proud way, nor an intelligent way, but a bottomless way: the length of her despair towards his demons was never ending. The fight she was battling was uphill on the both sides, and the winner wasn't decided.

She filled the bathtub up to the top with water, a beautiful claw-footed one that reminded her of the Victorian romance novels she used to read, sitting neatly next to Eli's Rock & Roll memoirs on the bookcase. Slipping herself in, she closed her eyes, trying to erase herself in the lavender bubbles.

"You're home," A dazed looking Eli mumbled, padding in the bathroom, lifting the lid on the toilet seat and peeing. She rolled her eyes, the bath water moving around as she rubbed a loofa over her leg.

"Yeah. I got in a few minutes ago." She said, keeping her voice light. He flushed the toilet, rinsing his hands and face with cold water before taking a seat on the floor of the bathroom, placing his chin on the ledge of the bathtub and looking at her. She noticed that Eli's eyes were impossibly wide and full of undeterred innocence, despite the irony in that statement. She felt her lips curve into a small smile.

"There are too many bubbles," He whined. "I can't see you." His fingers dipped in the water, trailing along the sides.

"Eli," She said, placing the nape of her neck against the edge of the bath. "Have you been asleep all day?"

He nodded. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Her automatic response was.

He disagreed. "It's not. I'm being pathetic."

Clare closed her eyes for a moment, looking at the old ceiling, he shower head nozzle, the light bulb. "No, Eli, you're nowhere close. You should be able to have a few sleep in days. You're classes start in a little more than a week."

Eli frowns briefly, and she reaches her hand out of the water and lets it hang over the ledge, dripping, reaching for him. His fingers, drier and smoother, find her fingers. They clasp, and she can feel him nodding.

"You're starting in January. Freshman at college, and what, still seventeen? _No_." She giggles at the playfulness in his voice, a flicking him with water. He smirks, a little upturned half-smile that she's so used to, that's become a part of her, along with the gray boxer-briefs and highly caffeinated beverages.

"Hey, I might be a youngster, but at least I'm not a stuffy English major. _Oh god_." She teased, and laughed as he dramatically put his hand over his heart, as if it was wounded. "There's Pad Thai in the fridge, go heat it up. Not that I mind you seeing me naked…but I don't think there's enough room for the two of us in here." She muttered, looking around the tiny bathroom. He smiled, kissing her fingers and closing the door behind him.

They sat in the middle of his bed, facing each other, eating noodles. The air was thin and crisp around them, and Eli cursed at the sluggish radiator heaters. She watched him that night. She watched him sip broth, and spill greasy vegetables on his knee, she watched him laugh at her dry rants and she watched him listen to her tell stories about her childhood. She watched him close his eyes when he fell asleep again that night, tired from being fragile. She watched him, and she never blinked.

**Eli**

_1 year 52 days _

When he wakes up that morning, he's being subjected immediately to Clare's camera. She's in her underwear standing over him with her 35 mm, giggling when he grabs her ankle in an attempt to move her away from him.

"Really, Clare, this is the time?" He mutters, wiping the small sleepies from his eyes.

"This is exactly the time - your first, official, day of classes!" The sound of her voice made his stomach queasy - so light and full of hope, full of futures. He grinned crookedly, sitting up on his elbows and shaking his hair out. Clare sat down on top of him, pointing her camera at his face and clicking. He grimaced, and she said, "That's a perfect face!" before snapping another shot.

She set the camera down, looking at him with her head cocked slightly to the side, her hair tickling her forehead. He almost feels squirmy under her gaze, so meaningful, so quiet. She leans down to kiss him, smiling, instead blowing a raspberry on his face. He rolled his eyes, before flipping her over and kissing her neck, down her collar bone, her naked, freckled shoulders.

"I have morning breath and I love you," He muttered, making sure every kiss was sloppy.

"I didn't shave my legs and I love you," she quipped back, and he laughed, a small tremor shaking in his abdomen and he felt a hard on in it's beginning stages, nestled between her legs, his fingers dancing around her ribcage, her breasts. His lips found their way back to her mouth.

Her lips reminded him of extremely delicate pillows, rosy pink, as wet and bright as Spring time. Sometimes when his mind couldn't seem to focus on anything at all, he'd reach over and press his fingers on top of them, feeling the softness; the femininity. He could positively say they were one of his favorite things about Clare - the gracefulness of her mouth. He didn't mind kissing it, either. Sloppy or precise, with urgency, with tranquility. All of it was wonderful in that he expected them - and all of it was wonderful in ways that he couldn't anticipate.

She was breathing heavily now through her nose, and her fingers, which were previously been running through his hair, were tracing down his sides, eliciting little shivers from him as he kissed her ears, her jaw line. He was sketching her; drawing her out with his lips. Her fingers pulled down at the waist line at his black jersey cotton pajama pants, her right leg wrapped tightly around his hip, pressing herself as close to him as possible.

"You sure you want to?" She asked, as she almost always did, and he closed his eyes, emptying his mind except for Clare, preparing himself. Her hand ran over his cheek, cupping it, and then moving to the nape of his neck, pressing her complete, pillow-like lips to his. Reassurance. This was Clare's _I'll be with you every step of the way, even the awkward parts_. This was Clare's _I love you and only you_. This was Clare's _I want you in every single way._

"Yeah. I'm sure." He whispers between kisses.

**Clare**

_1 year 52 days_

Eli returns that night, looking worn and flushed and excited, and she had a cup of chicken and rice soup and a sandwich on a plate waiting for him. She was sitting on top of the sturdy, rustic looking dining room table, which also serves as a make shift bookcase, computer desk, and at the moment, laundry dump site. She was sitting cross legged, wearing some stripped pajama pants and one of his Brand New sweatshirts and folding clothes. It was cold in their apartment, and her toes were chilled. Most of the socks were still in the washer down the stairs in the basement of the building.

"Hey!" She called out as he closed the door briskly, shivering and looking around, before smirking. "I know, it's cold. Sorry. Window was left open in the bathroom - and yes, by me." She answered his questions before he got to ask them and he smirked, standing at the kitchen counter and slurping as much of the soup as he could at once. She watched with high spirits and Eli messily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Class was -" He said, before taking a large bite of his sandwich, half chewing, and speaking again. "Pretty fucking awesome. The professor is great. Rad dude, lives uptown, drives an old rocker van. Psychology" he answers her question when she opens her mouth, and she shuts it again, her hands running over a pair of her underwear, folding them.

"I like that pair," he says, before gulping more soup.

She smirked, before tossing it in her pile. "Your other classes?"

"Totally awesome. Oh, I am so excited for all this. College. _Yes_." He said, closing his eyes and imitating a head banger. She giggled, her cheeks rosy from happiness, her chest welling. All day she had been nervous for him to get back, anxious to see him and hear about his day. She had dreaded that it would have been traumatizing, terrible. Too long, or too boring, so many people at once. But he was doing amazing. Eli was curing himself, and he had no idea. She smiled again.

"Someone looks smug." He quipped, and she felt her chest swell at the sarcasm, something he used so rarely. "What, you switched to an even eco-friendlier and economically cheaper detergent?"

"Oh ha-ha." She rolled her eyes, and Eli wolfed down the rest of the sandwich. "I had a nice day, too. Thanks for asking, though I'm sure it wasn't as crazy-exciting as yours."

"Oh, sweetie, how was your day?" He asked, rolling his eyes.

She stood up, taking a large pile of his clean, folded laundry and placing it two of the dresser drawers. She took hers and put them in the other two. When she turned around, he was shrugging out of his sweatshirt, throwing it on the ground. He switched off the kitchen lights, turned off all lamps except the bedside one.

"Nice outfit, love. Glad you steal all my clothes. Thief - that name really suits you." He quips, and her glare turns from the clothing article on the floor to his remark. She looked down at the pajamas, realizing they were his.

"Not my fault. My clothes were all in the wash. You deserve this." She laughed, and then realized the grin had completely slid on his face. Her insides turned cold, running over what she had just said and she could feel her body outwardly, noticeably cringe before she had chance to stop it. Eli turned away, taking off his shoes and his jeans before walking into their small bathroom. She could hear the meek shower start a minute later, and she wanted to collapse.

Of course, she had to ruin it - he was finally in a cheerful, happy mood, and she has to say something so reckless - "you deserve this". Her whole body seemed to recoil in resent at herself, her mouth, her carefree thoughts. _You deserve this. You deserve This. You deserve this_.

It was what Fitz had said before he had raped Eli and she wanted to cry for bringing it up on a day when he when he was so terrifically light. He was the feather, and her goddamn mouth had blow him away.

She sat in the middle of the bed, her knees tucked under her chin. She placed clothes at the edge of the bathroom door. She looked around the apartment, a distraction from herself. Books on the bookshelf: mostly Eli's, the last row hers. Lamp, clock, ipod doc. Wooden floors, need of a warm rug. Bed, mere inches from the ground. Her collection of black and white photos hanging on the brick walls, the dark reminding her of Eli's complexity, his ease, the light reminding her of his heart. She only took in black and white because even if the photo wasn't of him - it _was _him.

He stepped out, steam billowing around his body, his hair pushed back and sopping. He didn't even look up when he saw the clothes before taking them back into the bathroom. Silence. It stung her ears, her cheeks, her skin. Her foot fell asleep, and that stung too.

When he re-emerged, he stepped over to the bed and lied down, underneath the blankets. His arms wound their way around her boxed in body, pulling her down. She stretched on and ran her toes along his legs for a moment, settling around his ankles. She was pliable, moveable, easily squeezable. He smiled, a small sad smile, one she loved to see. Then she remembered the smirk, the lighthearted grin - and the small smile seemed to mock her. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He switched off the bedroom light, lying in darkness. Her teeth weren't brushed. Her hair wasn't combed. And she didn't care. It was silent for a moment, then, "I hate that you have to tiptoe around me like that. That you can't use certain words because I am like this. I'm like, this broken, crappy thing."

These words hurt her heart, hurt like wringing out a towel that tore at your palms. She whispered back, though there was no one else in the apartment, no reason for them to be so quiet. This is how they were, though. Raised to believe that they weren't important enough to make noise. "I don't tiptoe, I stomp. And you're not crappy, not broken. You're whole, so full and complete that sometimes I get carried away."

Eli nodded, looking for her approval. His eyes were unusually shiny, strangely wide, like he was scared to blink. Her lips danced closer to his ear. "There is no one else in the world I would love more than you. No matter how perfect they might be. It is your imperfections I like, because they can handle my imperfections."

"I love you more than anyone, Clare. I say that all the time."

She nodded. "No one belongs here more than you."

**Eli**

_1 year 62 days _

In classes, honestly, he feels _free_.

It's almost as liberating as having a place to live in. A place where he can walk in and not have to sneak across the walls, slither in on the floor, in the dark, at odd hours, tiptoeing. His professors are both intelligent and quirky, outspoken and wise - the atmosphere of the college; clean and then historical, grand and yet very, very individual. It was strange waking up and realizing there were things to do in the day.

He had just finished his rough draft for an essay about Romanticism when Clare walked in, holding shopping bags and wrapped up in a large, wooly sweater. He hadn't looked up, until she dropped the bags on the floor where the entrance was, walking over to where he was sitting at their dining room table.

It wasn't until he looked into her face, stark white and eyes wider than he'd ever seen them, that he was nervous. When he saw that her fingers were shaking, that nervous edge quickly turned into scared.

"What's wrong?" He asked, feeling his way through the misty, foggy waters.

But Clare seemed as nervous, if not more nervous than he was. Actually, now that he stared at her for longer than a few seconds, she looked downright terrified.

"Clare." He said, putting his hand over her trembling one. It was cold, and bony, and he could fit his whole palm around her fisted one. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and shaking her bob out.

"I went to the doctor today," She said, looking past him, into nothing. "And they say I'm pregnant."

_Pregnant_.

**Clare**

_1 year 62 days_

She's looking at him more closely than she'd ever thought possible. A movement, a twitch, a facial expression.

He's stunned, of course, surprised and possibly scared. But that's okay. She had all day to realized that there was someone - something like Eli and something like herself wrapped up inside of her, growing, getting ready to live. It scared her to death - it terrified her, and she had walked downtown, looking in baby boutiques and clothing stores and at maternity wear. She was numb, to everything, and every time her stomach made a noise, her hands shook, like it was telling her to calm down.

She's seventeen, and she's pregnant.

It was so unlike anything she had ever wanted before. Everything, in the last year, had changed so drastically for her. She wasn't married, she wasn't living at home, and she was pregnant. She waited with bated breath, looking for a reaction out of Eli.

"You're pregnant?" He asked, and she nodded, closing her eyes and sitting down. "Well, what are we going to do?"

"What do you mean, what are we going to do?" She asked. Even though it was scary, the answer kind of seemed obvious to her.

"You want to have it - the baby?" He asked, running his hands through his hair. Before she had a chance to answer, he nodded to himself and spoke again. "Of course you do. You want to keep it, too."

She nodded. "It's not all bad, Eli. We can make this work."

He shook his head grimly. "I don't work. I'm getting a free ride and scholarships for this apartment because I'm emancipated - and you're barely out of high school. How is this supposed to work?"

"We can make it -"

"But how? We can't tell your parents. They'd flip. Saint Clare, unwed, knocked up -"

"You don't have to be an callous. I can figure this out. We can do this. The most important thing is that we would love this child more than -"

"_Love_ doesn't pay bills, Clare! I get my money from the state. You really think they're going to supply my ride to school if I'm impregnating people? _No_. I can't be a father - I can barely help you, I can barely help myself."

"What are you saying, Eli?" Her voice was low and shaking, her cheeks red. "Are you gonna leave? Are you going to walk out, like your father did to you?"

It was a low blow, and she knew it was. She sighed inwardly at her words, knowing that she had said that just to hurt him. His cheeks colored. "My father beat the shit out of me and my mother. We wanted him to leave."

"Just like I want you to leave." She muttered coldly, turning away from him and finding the kitchen sink, gripping it tightly. She flinched when he stood up, the chair hitting the floor with a loud clattering. He looked livid, breathing a little labored.

"I'll see you around." He muttered, not looking at her. "When I've got this figured out."

**Eli**

_1 year 72 days _

It's the tenth day and he wants her to come back so badly his blood tremors inside of his bones. He's wrapping up a comparative essay on his laptop, listening to a song on Clare's ipod. He's been working on the same piece the whole day, unable to get her out his head long enough to writing a legitimate sentence.

She's only been gone a week, but it's longest he's gone without her in a very extensive time. Everything about her seems almost too good, he mused with disenchanted nostalgia. Too pure, too clean and demure. Even when she was fighting with him, her words were quiet and precise and accurate - where he was a sputtering, aggravated mess. Her bravery, her loyalty, the unwavering way in which she loved him were almost too hard to think about. He wishes she was here, and he'd take it all back - he'd make it work to the end.

In truth, it scared him out of his fucking mind to have a child. But it scared him a lot more to lose Clare.

So when he opens his front door to check for any mail, his heart is caught in his throat when he sees that she's there, standing, her arm awkwardly raised in position to knock. "Clare," he breathed. "Clare, I'm so -"

She presses her hand to his lips and he quiets. Her fingers are dry and his mouth is moist. She looks a little lost, but firm, too. "We're going to fix this."

"Where did you go?" He asked, and she took off her coat, placing her bag on the large multi-tasking table, littered in his papers and books. He had returned the night they had found out she was pregnant to an empty apartment. A few of Clare's things were gone, and she hadn't returned any of his calls, emails, or text messages. It was like she had fallen off the face of the earth for a small period of time, and the loneliness was almost too consuming. To see her now made him too earnest.

"I stayed in my room at Dad's." She said, shaking her hair out. He frowned, having drove past there to check and had had no such luck. "I saw you drive by, but I wasn't ready to see you."

He nodded mutely. She continued on. "It's going to be difficult, but I need to know you're going to be with me."

"I'll be with you through anything" He answered too quickly, an revelation he had while he was sitting in his apartment nigh after night, alone. It was almost idiotic how he had come to that conscious conclusion, a conclusion Clare had come to a long time before him. Sometimes he fucking hated himself.

She smiled, before turning away. "I'm sorry about what I said - it wasn't okay."

He nodded. Sometimes it was like she was reading the book of All the Right Things to Do, or How to Master Perfection. "I don't want you to leave me again."

"Yeah. I won't."

"We need each other."

"Yeah. We do."

"We're gonna have a baby." He muttered, smirking to himself. "A real one."

"As opposed to a fake one?" She giggled, before turning into his arms and pressing her cheek to his chest. He placed his chin on top of her curly hair. "We're going to do this, and we're going to be okay."

Once again - he had to put all his faith in Clare. He wasn't sure what else he could do.

**Clare**

_1 year 72 days_

She doesn't want to tell her parents - not yet. After seeing her gynecologist and setting her prenatal vitamins in order, she realizes that she's been pregnant for a little over a month and _how come she didn't realize it?_

The box of tampons under the sink in the bathroom seem to mock her, and she felt oddly like Jenna Middleton. Had she been so distracted by Eli, and school, and moving in, that she hadn't realized her period was late?

She had always been on top of things - from menstruation to her homework. This completely hit her blind side, and in one of the hardest ways possible, too. She had called Alli to talk about life still at Degrassi, around home, and she listens to her supposed best friend with little interest. She feels a bit guilty for it, but really, when did these things sound so mundane? When did these issues, like he said and she said, get so redundant? Do tiresome? Had her life changed so much in so little time?

Eli was resuming typing on his laptop, ranting animatedly about John Keats and his love for Fannie Price. She listened intently, enjoying the idea of such a passionate love and cherishing the fact that her relationship with Eli was sometimes, so, so close to it. Loving some to the point of painfulness was rare, and even though it could hurt like hell, she mused, it was worth. There was never time when it wasn't.

She showers and brushes her teeth, cursing the bathroom mirror to be too high up to see how big she actually is. She should have noticed it before that she was gaining weight, and for gods sake, she had been completely oblivious. The stupid feeling soared, and she didn't like the way it slicked her insides.

"Wow." It's Eli from the dining room table, his eyes big and engrossed in her partially naked torso. He walked over, kneeling down and pressing his hand to her slightly budding belly. His lips grazed across her belly button, and she smiled. "Our baby is in there."

She nodded. "Yeah. Getting all warm and crispy for us."

He laughed. "Clare, you're such a weirdo."

She shrugged her sweatshirt on and lied in bed, picking up a book. "You coming to bed soon, maybe?" She asked, licking her finger to turn a page. "You know, soon, enough, I'll be able to balance my books on my belly. Convenient."

His laughter rung in her ears and for a moment everything was at peace.

**Eli**

_1 year 82 days_

He's seeing something he never wants to see again.

Clare's lying on the bed and thrashing, and there is blood _everywhere. _He hasn't seen her cry in what seems a like a long time, but he's two strides from the front door and by her side. Her face is red, and her arms and clenched around her middle. Both her legs and abdomen are drenched in blood.

"Clare, Clare, are you okay? What's going on?" He asks frantically, realizing how stupid he sounds.

"Eli," She shouts terribly, and the sound will imprint itself in his brain forever. "Eli, call 911. I'm losing, I'm losing the baby."

Everything horrible and repulsive is rising up inside of him, and he's so angry that this is happening, so scared that she's so bloody, in so much pain. The ambulance comes, and he's riding with her in the back. Generally, the doctor had said, and her voice seemed far away, early miscarriages shouldn't be as traumatic as it was. However, each person is individual…

The rest he can't remember, and the loss feels like a strange, slow ache in his gut. He holds Clare's hand in a hospital bed, and she'll be discharged in the next morning after a blood transfusion. The physical stress would be minimum, they had said, but the emotional…

She had always been the strong one, the one who always knew what to do - and she, she would now need him to pick up the pieces. He grabs her hand a little tighter and watches her sleep, her cheeks abnormally pale; flyaway pieces falling out of her French braid. He sits there and watches a strange soap opera he's never seen before, the clock on the wall mocking him, the walls around them mocking them. He can't help but feel angry again, because for fucks sakes - Clare, of all people, didn't deserve this. She didn't need it.

He wanted to curse God, but he knew that Clare wouldn't approve of it. She was no longer the religious bible thumper she once was; she had told him that her belief in god had died when her parents divorced; when he was assaulted. He wondered where she got her hope, then, because a girl like her was meant to be happy and instead, she wound up being hurt and misplaced, time after time. He realized that she was water as clear and as pure as her blue eyes, and he was a rock she broke herself against.

He wanted to curl up and sleep for days at that thought, then, running his hand through his dark hair, shook his head at himself. Those days were over. He couldn't hide.

He'd have to put himself out in the open and try to fix things.

**Clare**

_1 year 82 days_

She feels strangely empty. It wasn't the kind of empty that she felt when Eli ran away from her after being assaulted by Fitz, or the kind of emptiness she felt when she realized she didn't have a place in her household. It wasn't the kind of emptiness she had when she realized there was a part of her that was changed for ever.

It was almost as physical as it was emotional.

She awoke to a weekend, clear and bright in the wintertime light. The destroyed sheets and blankets from her miscarriage where thrown away, she guessed, by Eli. She cringed. She never wanted to him to have to see something so gruesome like that. She had wanted to have his baby so badly - no matter that she was 17, or that they were poor and young and unwed. It didn't matter to her, anymore (unlike how much it would 2 years ago) because she had Eli and she loved Eli, and that love was both gratifying and agonizing.

She thought back to Eli's rant about John Keats and Fannie Price, and wonders if great love is really worth it all, and a worse thought comes to her: this is self hatred.

She realizes now how much pain he must have been in all those months, questioning himself, hating himself, hating what was done to him, and hating to feel like it could have been his fault. She realizes how naïve she had been to this pain, this self wallowing abhorrence, and she wants to shrink until she's tiny.

"Clare?" It's Eli's voice from above her, and she raises her head from her pillow to look at him. He's got a white t-shirt on and black pants, because he loves black pants. There's a cup of tea, probably too hot and too full of sugar, which he sets by her side of bed before crawling over to his side (The left, his was always the left) and lying down. His arms move slower when he scoops her up in his arms, lying his face down on a painfully floral pillow case, his hair falling around his cheeks.

"I'm tired," She mumbles, and his fingers, long and thin, trail across her cheeks. She can feel her eyes become wet again, and her brow is pulled upward by the sudden rise of emotion. He gently shushes her, his breath warm and inviting by her ear while he wipes a stray tear from her cheek. "I'm sorry," She whines wetly. "I wanted so badly to have that baby and…"

"I know." he nods. "We'll have another one, we'll make another one. When we're more ready, okay?"

"What if I can't have kids?" She whispers, horrified.

She can feel Eli shrug. "We'll adopt. Ten of them if we have to."

"…okay."

It's a sudden agreement, and in a way, she feels less empty, more full, like a measuring cup. She notices the sudden change in roles, and another part of her smiles at Eli, her boy, her man. She knows that if he can heal, she could, and she knows that he would love her until the end.

"Is that Captain Crunch?" She asks, and she can feel the laugh in her voice. He puffs his chest out slightly, reaching over for the box and sticking his hand in it.

"You, this bed, and the Captain of all that is Crunch," Eli joked, throwing cereal in his mouth. "All I could ask for." He jokes, and there is a sudden burst of light through the long, lean windows, the random, distant sun glowing in the middle of winter. She blinks, and manages a small, shaky smile, before placing her hand in the cereal box, too. And then, she nodded to herself.

The day would be ending, and soon enough, tomorrow would come. A new day would arise, and she would have to face it. And he would face it with her.

**I'm burning like a bridge for your body. **

_Review?_


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